Quick Review – Zero Days Since Last Incident by JE Rowney

Zero Days Since Last Incident Cover

Publisher: Little Fox Publishing (Ebook – 31 October 2023)

Series: Standalone

Length: 218 pages

My Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

Intriguing author J. E. Rowney presents a fast-paced and entertaining workplace thriller that places seven dislikeable coworkers into a dangerous position, relying on each other, with Zero Days Since Last Incident.

Plot Synopsis:

“The Office” meets “Lord of the Flies” in this tense psychological thriller.

A team building exercise takes a drastic turn when the plane crashes on its way to the retreat.

Seven coworkers.

One island.

No love lost.

Surviving the island might prove easier than surviving each other.

In the toxic and cutthroat environment of a high-pressure corporate office, a group of coworkers find themselves caught in a web of power struggles and bullying. Frustrated by the lack of productivity and deteriorating relationships, their boss, Richard Thornicroft, devises a drastic plan to force them to work together.

Richard selects seven of his employees to embark on a team-building retreat, but when their plane runs into difficulties on the journey, the coworkers face challenges that none of them could have anticipated. Tensions rise, alliances shift, and primal instincts emerge.

Can they work together or will old habits die far too hard?

When I first read the plot synopsis for Zero Days Since Last Incident I had some pretty high hopes for this book. The idea of a bunch of backstabbing, ambitious, high-functioning corporate types trying to survive on a desert island and taking the opportunity to scheme and kill each other off sounded pretty damn awesome, and I was all there for a story like that. Unfortunately, Zero Days Since Last Incident really didn’t live up to its potential and proved to be somewhat disappointing for me.

Now to be fair, there are some parts of this book that I really enjoyed. The quick-paced story and short length ensured that I was constantly engaged with the book, and the premise of the deserted island and its secrets ensured that I kept reading the entire way through to see how everything came together. Rowney also succeeded in creating a good group of irritating and unlikeable central characters who you would love to see backstab and destroy each other. The author did a good job of introducing this annoying cast in the early office scene, and I liked how well Rowney set up some of the conflicts around them and the reasons why they were forced into a team building exercise.

However, the book honestly fell apart for me once the characters got to the island. Not only did the story start getting a bit rushed at this point, but the big plot twist was extremely obvious right away. Despite the author trying to obfuscate this reveal with a few mysterious inclusions and twists, none of which honestly pan out in a useful way, it’s painfully clear how everything is going to end, and the last two thirds of the book were a lot less fun for me as a result. I was also disappointed with how the characters reacted during their time on the island. If Rowney had really pushed the envelope and turned them all into maniacal manipulators, she could have turned Zero Days Since Last Incident into a zany and highly entertaining read of betrayal and intrigue. Instead, we got a bunch of whiney, self-absorbed figures and a pretty standard storyline about them overcoming their issues and starting to work together. This was all topped off with a pretty rushed ending, filled with way too-many intentional Lost parallels and references, all of which resulted in a pretty unsatisfying read for me.

Look, I can kind of see what Rowney was going for with her story, but I honestly felt that Zero Days Since Last Incident just didn’t live up to its full potential and the author could have produced something a lot more entertaining with her promising premise. Still, this ended up being a quick, easy read with some interesting character interactions and motivations thrown in, and some readers will probably have a good time with this book. Personally, I just didn’t have as much fun with it as I thought I would.

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